April 28, 2025 /eszoneo/ —
The energy storage sector in China saw a notable decline in new installations in Q1 2025, with a 1.5% drop in power capacity and a 5.5% decrease in energy storage capacity year-on-year. Despite this, regions like Hebei led the way in new installations, particularly with independent energy storage projects. China continues to focus on large-scale, hybrid, and sodium-ion battery projects, highlighting its progress in non-lithium energy storage technologies. This trend aligns with the country's broader energy transition goals, supported by ongoing policy initiatives and significant regional investments.
According to incomplete statistics from CNESA DataLink's global energy storage database, in the first quarter of 2025, China's newly commissioned energy storage projects totaled 5.03GW/11.79GWh, marking a year-on-year decrease of 1.5% in power capacity and 5.5% in energy storage. Among this, front-end installations totaled 4.46GW/10.57GWh, with a year-on-year decrease of 0.2%/4.4%, and user-side installations totaled 575MW/1124MWh, down by 10.9%/11.6% compared to the previous year.
Energy storage projects in 24 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions, including Hebei, Shandong, Ningxia, Xinjiang, and Yunnan, contributed to the new installations. Fourteen provinces recorded an increase in installed capacity of over 100 MW. Hebei, in particular, saw the largest number of independent energy storage projects, with several 100 MW-level independent storage stations, including the Hebei Zhangjiakou Chabei Management Area’s grid-side independent energy storage project. This region achieved over 1,000 MW in total new installations, with an average energy storage duration of 3.2 hours, both in power and energy scale ranking first in the country.
Independent Energy Storage Projects Account for Over 50% of New Installations:From an application distribution perspective, grid-side energy storage projects accounted for 52% of new installations, up by 17 percentage points compared to the same period last year. The newly installed capacity was 2.63GW/6.48GWh, a year-on-year increase of 46%/68%. There were 21 independent energy storage projects put into operation, with 17 of them exceeding 100 MW in power capacity. These projects were mainly concentrated in Hebei, Ningxia, Yunnan, Shandong, Guizhou, and 11 other provinces.
On the power side, new installations totaled 1.83GW/4.09GWh, representing a 31% decline in power capacity year-on-year. These projects were primarily new energy storage projects in Shandong, Xinjiang, Hebei, Gansu, and Henan, with Shandong accounting for 42% of the newly commissioned power capacity.
On the user-side, new installations were 575MW/1124MWh, down 11% year-on-year. These projects were distributed across 13 provinces, including Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Hebei, and Guangdong. Commercial and industrial energy storage continued to dominate, with the largest share in East China, Central China, North China, and South China, where East China alone accounted for over 50% of commercial and industrial user-side projects.
Technological Advancements:The majority of new energy storage projects used electrochemical storage technologies, with lithium-ion projects accounting for 98%, predominantly using lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery technology. In terms of hybrid storage, projects employing combinations of LiFePO4 batteries, vanadium redox flow batteries, sodium-ion batteries, and flywheels were also deployed. Notably, the first hybrid grid-connected storage project in China, the Guoneng Ningdong New Energy Hybrid Storage Demonstration Station, was launched, incorporating lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries, and supercapacitors.
Additionally, the Yunnan Wenshan grid-connected sodium-ion battery energy storage project and the Guaizhou Beidaqiao Baiyang 100MW wind power project, both using non-lithium technologies, were also commissioned.
